How to Delete a Contact in Signal

At a time when most social media messaging apps have been plagued by issues to do with insecurity and unauthorized use of confidential user information, Signal has been a breath of fresh air. Signal has been hailed for its end-to-end encryption which ensures that the contents of any chat remain private and can only be read by the sender and receiver.

But what happens when you don’t want a contact to appear in Signal? Maybe you just don’t get along with someone anymore. Maybe you just don’t want them to text you on the platform for one reason or the other. How do you delete this contact?

In this article, we’re going to see how you can delete a contact in Signal and also address a few questions about the platform.

How Does Signal Find Your Contacts?

Signal fetches all of your contacts from your phonebook and then links you up with everyone who has opened a Signal account. You’re able to see the profiles of everyone in your phonebook as long as they have signed up for the service, even if they are no longer active.

If you deny Signal access to your contacts, the app will not link you up with anyone you know, and your Signal contact list will be empty. In other words, there will be no way to find out which of your contacts are already on Signal.

How to Delete a Contact in Signal

If you don’t want to communicate with a particular contact on Signal, you have two options: deleting the contact or blocking them.

You can’t actually delete any of your contacts on Signal. The app doesn’t come with the option to delete a contact. The only way to remove a contact from your Signal contacts list is by deleting the contact from your device. That means you’ll no longer have that person’s phone number on your device.

If deleting a contact sounds too extreme, blocking them would be the way to go. To block a contact on Signal, here’s how to proceed:

1. Open the Signal messaging app.
   
2. Open your contacts list and locate the contact you’d like to block.
   
3. Tap on the contact to open the chat window.
   
4. Tap on the name of the contact to launch the individual contacts settings section.
   
5. Tap on “Block user.”
   
6. Tap on “Block” to confirm.
   

Once you’ve blocked a contact, they won’t be able to send you a message or even call you on Signal. What’s more, Signal doesn’t send the contact a notification indicating that you’ve blocked them.

How to Delete Message History in Signal

One of the reasons why Signal is popular has much to do with the fact that all the messages you exchange with a contact form one long thread. It’s possible to see the first message sent, who sent it, and the date it happened. This ensures that no particular piece of information is ever lost.

However, there are times when you’ll want to delete the entire message history between you and a contact. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Open the Signal app on your device.
   
2. Go to your chats and locate the chat you’d like to delete.
   
3. Tap and hold on the chat.
4. From the resulting pop-up window, select “Delete.”
   
5. Tap on “Delete” to confirm.
   

If you want to delete specific messages on a chat while leaving the rest behind:

1. Open the Signal app on your device.
   
2. Go to your chats and tap and hold on the chat you’d like to delete.
3. From the resulting pop-up window, select “Delete.”
   
4. Tap on “Delete for me.”
   

Note that you can also delete messages for everyone. To do so,

1. Open the Signal app on your device.
   
2. Go to your chats and tap and hold on the chat you’d like to delete.
3. From the resulting pop-up window, select “Delete.”
   
4. Tap on “Delete for everyone.”
   

Additional FAQs

How Do You Use Group Messaging in Signal?

Signal edges other similar messaging apps because you can create a group and add up to one thousand members. With other apps, the number is usually much smaller. You can use group messaging to communicate with your customers, friends, colleagues at work, or even your employees.

To create a group:

• Launch Signal and tap on the pencil icon in the bottom right corner.

• From the resulting menu, select “New group.”

• Proceed to select the contacts you’d like to add to the group. Alternatively, you can enter phone numbers manually to add members who are not on your contact list.

• Tap on “Next” to see group type and specify a name for the group.

• Tap on “Create.”

After successfully creating a group, you may proceed to send the first message by tapping on the text field, just as you would when texting one of your contacts. However, every contact added to the group will have to accept the invite to join, send, and receive messages.

Does Signal Have Privacy Issues?

Signal is not known to have privacy issues and is in fact one of the most secure messaging apps ever built. It doesn’t collect nor store user information and all messages are encrypted. Not even Signal admin personnel can access your messages.

How Do You Block a Contact From Signal?

• Open the Signal messaging app.

• Open your contacts list and locate the contact you’d like to block.

• Tap on the contact to open the chat window.

• Tap on the name of the contact to launch the individual contacts settings section.

• Tap on “Block user.”

• Tap on “Block” to confirm.

How Do You Remove a Contact From Signal?

To remove a contact from Signal, either delete them from your phonebook or block them on Signal.

Stay in Control

Deleting a contact from Signal is a sure way to stop unwanted people from messaging you and stay in control of your chats. And the good thing is that all that happens discreetly. They won’t know if you’ve deleted them. Thanks to this article, you now know just what you need to do if you no longer want to communicate with someone.

Do you use Signal? What’s your experience with the app?

Share your experience in the comment section below.